Ersatz
by Queen Boadicea
Summary: Ever wonder about the genuineness of a soul? Here are my thoughts on certain odd things I've noticed.


Title: Ersatz

Author: Queen Boadicea

Email: queenboadiceaoftheiceniyahoo.com

Disclaimer: This belongs to Joss Whedon and the usual gang of idi...uh, geniuses

Feedback: Do your worst—it can't compare to my worst

Notes: Spoilers for Angel: the Series, season five

[thoughts]

Angel sat at the big desk and tried not to dwell too much on Spike and his recent spate of irritating behavior. He'd known the guy was a huge pain in the ass years ago when he used to run with him, Drusilla and Darla. But back then he was useful for keeping Drusilla out of his hair when Angelus and Darla wanted to get up to some fun on their own. Now he was just a pest.

[Why not dust him then? The only one who really wanted him here was Fred and she's gone.] Thoughts of the sweet Texan always stung, even more than they did with Cordelia. The ex-prom queen had wanted a normal life more than anything when she came to Los Angeles. But she'd been quick to throw in with Angel when he was the only one around who would offer her a paying job.

Fred had stayed because she was too fragile and shaken up from her stint as a slave in another dimension. She'd had such trouble adjusting to life in Los Angeles. He could still recall the weeks Fred had spent hiding in her room and scribbling on the walls. The Texan woman really hadn't been cut out for what Angel and his crew did. He'd been deceived into thinking she was tough simply because she'd managed to survive the hell that was Pylea. Then she'd become involved with Gunn and Wesley and leaving hadn't been an option.

That was better. Guilt was always a good diversion especially when he wanted to avoid thinking about the peroxide peril. It steered his thoughts into other arenas, however. The near-loss of Gunn, Wesley's descent into the dark side, Cordy's death, Lorne's depression—everything had gone to hell ever since coming to Wolfram & Hart. Could things get any worse?

The intercom squawked and Harmony's irksome voice came over the sound system. "Angel, I've got a long-distance call from Africa. It's this loser named Xander Harris. He used to date Cordelia when she lost her sense of taste. I didn't know you knew _him_. Do you want to take it?"

Oh no. The only other guy who could get under his skin worse than Spike was on the line. [And here I was thinking things had sunk as low as they could go. I must have jinxed it.] However, he hadn't heard from Xander since Sunnydale had fallen and they hadn't spoken in the years before that. If the boy was calling him now, then something must be really wrong.

[Buffy.] The very thought of her in danger caused his undead heart to seize up and he snatched up the phone receiver. "Put the call through, Harmony."

"Gotcha, boss."

There was a series of clicks and then Xander's voice came over the line, as hearty as he remembered it. "Hey, Deadboy! Are you there? How are things in Evil Central?"

"Xander. How's the eye?" Angel responded dryly. Andrew had been more than forthcoming about events surrounding the near-apocalypse in Sunnydale following its destruction. The boy chattered like a magpie during his brief trip to W&H. Angel found him almost as much of a babbler as Willow had been.

"Still missing, thanks for asking. How's the soul?"

"Still here. Why are you calling, Xander?" All at once Angel wasn't interested in bantering with Xander. If there was a problem, he wanted to know it. If not, then he had a company to run.

"Well, I don't know if you've heard but I've been roaming around Africa since we've split from the crater formerly known as Sunnydale."

"I know. Andrew was very informative the last time he was here."

"I'm betting he doesn't know the real reason I'm traveling the Dark Continent."

"He told us you were doing research, helping to track down Slayers, training potential Watchers. Other than that, he wasn't too clear. He kept going on and on about vampires and telling us things we already knew. He was also gushing over Spike. Was something going on between those two because he seemed really friendly?"

There was an undignified snort at the other end of the line. "Wouldn't surprise me. Andrew always seemed to adore Chips Ahoy for some reason. So, the leader of the hair dye brigade still hanging around?"

Angel heaved an unnecessary sigh. "That he is."

"He still the same thorn-in-your-side jerk he was before he got his soul?"

"Pretty much. You'd think the soul would make a difference. But nope. Still a jackass."

"I found out why, too." Xander's voice lost its joking edge and became serious. Unconsciously, Angel straightened in his chair.

"What do you mean?"

"Spike tell you how he got his soul?"

"In excruciating detail. He mentioned that he went looking for his, how he underwent trials. It was a whole, long tedious story in which he tried to make himself sound like a hero."

"Well, he told Buffy that story, too. Told it to the Potentials when they asked and they told me the details. So I went to Africa to check it out."

"That's right. He did mention Africa," Angel mused.

"He went to some demon or other and that got me suspicious. Demons rarely give out gifts—not good gifts anyway. Anya used to tell me all these stories about the women she'd granted wishes to. They usually backfired somehow because, hey, she was a demon and she wanted to hurt human beings, male or female. Sorta like being a trickster, you know?"

"Yeah, magical wishgivers are sly that way. They're literal, treacherous and spiteful. You wish for water and you drown. That sort of thing," Angel replied.

"Well, this demon Spike went to tended to move around a lot. It was never in one place for too long so I asked the locals how Spanky had tracked it down. It took me months of searching before I even found a guy who said he remembered Spike. He was puzzled how Chips Ahoy got in to see this demon because apparently the creature's more reclusive than Howard Hughes."

"And?" There was more to this story and Angel found himself getting intrigued.

"Turns out that somebody else claimed to have seen this demon on the same night that Spike was granted admission. So I'm thinking that unless this demon was in two places at the same time—"

"—Then he saw a different demon," Angel finished.

"Bin-go. So I called in the services of a local shaman to find out what was the what and he sent me on this vision quest."

"No kidding? What was that like?" Angel was curious. He'd spent a lot of time meditating and traveling in the East after he'd gotten his soul. He knew how trippy those things could be.

"There were a couple of deviations down memory lane for yours truly. But the upshot is, that demon Spike saw was a ringer."

"A ringer? How could that be?"

"It seems everybody's least favorite vampire was feeling really crappy after he left Sunnydale. He and Buffy had—they'd been fighting and Buffy had kicked him to the curb for good. Spike was probably feeling less than happy about that." Xander sounded cautious and remote and Angel picked up on it immediately.

"They'd fought? What about? Buffy seemed really attached to Spike the last time I saw her in Sunnydale. What did they fight about?"

"I don't know. I only know they'd been in some sort of fight. I came in on the end of it and Spike had already gone by then. Buffy never told me the details." The note of caution had become heavier. What was Xander not telling him? The man on the other end of the line hurried on as if to forestall any questioning on Angel's part. "What I learned was that Nacho Boy didn't go to Africa to get a soul. He came to remove his chip. You know about that?"

"About a chip? No. Buffy and I have been talking since Sunnydale collapsed but we haven't spoken much about old times."

"That's too bad because this was one of the funnier Sunnydale stories. This super secret paramilitary group called the Initiative took up residence in Sunnydale. Buffy was dating one of their commandos for a while, a guy called Riley Finn."

"We met." The answer was clipped. That was a polite way of describing their hostile encounter.

"Riiiight. Buffy told Willow how he and a bunch of his guys jumped you when you came to Sunnydale. You're lucky you didn't wind up on a slab in their lab, Deadboy."

"A lab? Those guys had a laboratory? I thought you said they were military."

"They were. They were also conducting experiments on various demons in the Sunnydale burg. They caught Spanky and put a chip in his head that zinged him every time he tried to hurt humans. It was so rib cracking watching him flinch and yell. It was better than cable."

"I'll bet it was hell for him."

"No doubt. I caught him trying to kill himself once—wearing one of my shirts."

The vampire sniggered. "One of _your_ shirts? God, a fate worse than death."

"Do you want to hear this story about the demon or not?" Xander demanded.

Angel finished laughing. "Sorry. Do continue."

"So he goes to Africa to get this demon to remove the chip. He was probably planning on coming back and tearing through all us Scoobies."

Angel's grip on the phone tightened ever so slightly. "Yeah, that sounds like the Spike I know."

"But there were these other beings, ones working for our side. The good guys, you know? They looked really weird, covered with this shiny, silvery paint like party people out of the 70s."

The vampire sat up abruptly. "A man and a woman? They called each other brother and sister, right?"

There was a short pause. "Crap. Don't tell me you know them."

"If they're the two I'm thinking of, then I do. They're called the Oracles and they gave me...something I asked for a long time ago. But I thought they were dead. I saw their bodies after they'd been killed by a Vocah demon."

"Maybe they were promoted. You know how hard it is for people to stay dead around us. Anyway, they were in my vision thingy and they told me about Sparky's little plan to get his chip removed. So they set up a faker who was working for their side and told him to give Spike his soul. But that's not even the best part."

"There's more?"

"You bet. Turns out this guy is a lower-level demon, strictly fifth rate. On a scale of one to ten, one being dime-store parlor magician and ten being Willow during her world-destructo phase, this guy would be the one doing balloon animals at kids' birthday parties. He didn't have the stuff it took to pose real trials. So he whips up a couple of fighters and summons bugs to crawl up Sparky's nose..."

"WHAT?!?" Angel was suddenly laughing again. Spike had never mentioned anything about bugs and Angel could understand why. It was definitely less than heroic to get chomped on by fleas. Oh, this was just too rich.

"You got it. I thought that was pretty laugh worthy myself. But here's the kicker. Like I said, this guy didn't have the mojo it took to give the real goods. So he slapped Spike with a fake soul."

"A fake soul? That's not possible," Angel began.

"Says who? Did you guys check to see if Sir Spanks-A-Lot has a real soul? I know we didn't which was really a strike for our side considering we had a powerful witch working for us."

"Uh..." Angel thought back. He'd accepted Buffy's word that Spike had a soul and Spike had seemed determined to fight the good fight when he got to Los Angeles—in his own crass style. He'd never gotten his Grandchilde to sing for Lorne so the green-skinned demon hadn't read Spike's soul. He had taken the whole other-vampire-with-a-soul business entirely for granted. God, had he gotten stupider since he'd taken up the reins at Wolfram & Hart or what?

He brought his attention back to what Xander was saying. "You know why margarine is so different from butter, Deadboy? One's oil and one's dairy but most people can't taste the difference and it doesn't matter in a lot of recipes."

"That's what Spike's got? A...margarine soul?" The very phrase was enough to make Angel start chuckling again.

"That's how I see it. It seems these guys saw the future and knew somebody with a soul was going to be called on to wear that pretty Pendant of Doom doohickey. Rather than risk you or Buffy, they slipped in the clown of the demon world who slaps Chips Ahoy with a cheap soul substitute and voila! One martyr for hire on the Hellmouth."

"But if Spike doesn't have a real soul, then how does he qualify for the role of champion?"

"That's another thing. You didn't need to be a champion to use the amulet. You just needed a soul, a source of mystical energy like the Hellmouth and a burst of magic to trigger the gem. Where did you hear that bit about the champion?"

"Lilah Morgan told me."

"Who's that? Friend of yours, Angel?"

"Not exactly," the vampire muttered. Of course, Lilah Morgan wasn't exactly the trustworthy type. She'd probably lied about the pendant needing a champion in order to trick him into wearing it. If either he or Buffy had donned that cursed bit of jewelry, one of them would have wound up a ghost haunting Wolfram & Hart, ripe for corruption or destruction. He'd been handed a noose and nearly stuck his own head into it. Angel found himself with the hearty desire to kick his own backside.

Xander must have picked up on his feelings. "Looks like people have been jerking around with the forces of good and evil on both sides of the Pacific."

"Looks like it." Angel could have easily yanked Lilah's head off her shoulders again if the woman hadn't disappeared during his early stint as Wolfram & Hart's CEO.

"So you gonna tell Spike about his polyester soul or should I? C'mon; I'll flip ya for it," Xander added jokingly.

Angel considered the matter for a moment. While it would be great to see Spike's face when he found out his soul was as real as a diamond ring from a box of Cracker Jacks, he realized at once there would be a drawback. "No, I don't think so, Xander. It's best to keep this secret under wraps."

"Why? Some kind of chivalry, Deadboy? 'Cause, believe me, the Blonde Vampition so does not deserve it."

"That's not it, Xander. Believe it or not, Spike is doing good here in Los Angeles. He thinks it's all due to his soul. If he found out he didn't really have one, he might go back to his evil ways. He might even carry through on tracking down Buffy and the rest of you."

"That's a definite yes now that she ever so helpfully removed that chip of his. Then there's the other reason."

"Which is?"

"If he finds out he doesn't have a real soul, he might make an effort to get one and actually succeed this time. That would put him in the ring as contender for the Shanshu title."

Hmmm, Buffy must have told him about the Shanshu. Angel wondered what else she had told him. "Good thinking, Xander. So no talking to Spike about his phony soul." Angel hesitated. "Xander?"

"Yeah?"

"Could you—not tell Buffy about this?" Angel asked cautiously.

"Well, I wasn't going to, anyway. Nobody knows I'm playing junior spy in Africa. I didn't think Buffy would approve. She made such a big deal about what a better guy Spike was last year; she'd probably feel like a big idiot if it turned out she was wrong."

"That's it, Xander," Angel said with relief. That wasn't entirely the real reason but there was no need to let Xander know that. He thought of how Buffy's feelings for Spike had radically changed after he got a soul. He wondered if she had loved him, Angel, simply because he was a type rather than a person. [Or maybe she'd love Spike even without a soul. And what kind of person would that make her?] He shied away from the thought and focused on what Xander was saying.

"Well, gotta jet. Giles is thinking there's another Slayer in Zimbabwe and I have to go line up an interpreter." Now it was his turn to pause. "You thinking of visiting Buffy any time soon?"

"No. The last time I saw her, she said she...needed time."

"Oh, you mean that whole cookie dough thing."

Angel grimaced. "Does _everybody_ know about that speech? Because I sure didn't tell anyone on my end."

"I'm pretty sure it's just us core Scoobies." He stopped to think for a minute. "And maybe Dawn. She might have spilled to Andrew, I'm not sure. I've been out of the gossip loop what with all the traveling."

"Great," Angel grunted. "If Andrew knows, then they all know."

"Cheer up, big guy. I don't see why you need to wait until she's finished. Personally, I like the taste of cookie dough. And who knows? If you finish 'baking' before she does, then she might decide being raw cookie dough with you isn't that bad."

"You'd be okay with that?" Angel knew Xander didn't have the fondest feelings for him. But maybe that had changed, too.

There was an extended silence from Africa and Angel thought Xander might not answer. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet and reflective. "Look, I'm not saying you're my favorite person in the world. But after losing so many people I cared about, I took a good hard look at what I had left and said to myself, 'It's not just about you, Xander Harris. You've got to look out for your friends and see that they have what makes them happy.' And if you're what makes Buffy happy, then go for it."

"Thanks, Xander. T-that means a lot, coming from you."

The breezy tone returned as Xander replied, "Hey, I'm thinking you've got to be a step up from Sparky. That moron couldn't even pick up his own towels." He clucked his tongue in mock irritation and hung up.

Spike was leaving towels around Xander? Angel stared at the phone and wondered when Xander and Spike had achieved that level of domesticity. Deciding that he didn't want to know the details, he hung up the phone just as the subject of conversation entered the room. "Hey, Peaches. Thought there was a meeting? Where's the rest of your motley crew?"

Angel didn't answer. He only stared at Spike for several long moments until the other vampire began to fidget. "What's with the burning look, Peaches? You still pissed over the car I totaled? I 'splained about that so get over it already."

Yep, definitely no soul in residence. Angel wondered why he'd ever thought there was. [Unless another vampire gets cursed with a soul, that Shanshu is _mine_, boy.] He leaned back, allowing a small amount of self-satisfaction at that thought, and smiled. Without answering Spike, he swiveled his chair to stare pointedly out the necro-tempered windows.

Suddenly things were looking up—just a little.

Finis


End file.
